Through a glass darkly – 160

I’ve never consciously wanted to be a vegetarian. But we visited cousin David’s allotment the other week and he gave us some excellent tomatoes and some handsome beetroot. So I made beetroot crumble with shallots and goat’s cheese. And it was very good ! And then someone else gave us an handful of courgettes. And I made courgette bake with gruyère cheese and parmesan and lots of eggs. And it was delicious ! And I made it again. After all those vegetables it was a pleasure to go out to Sunday lunch for Ali’s birthday at The Canny Man in Morningside. And I had a generous plate of rare roast beef with roast vegetables and a Yorkshire pudding as big as a small spaceship.

Party Conference season

It is that time of year when the political parties gather their faithful remnant for party conferences. Which always used to be at Blackpool or at Brighton. Last week it was the Reform Party in Birmingham. I just don’t get it with Nigel Farage. Recent opinion polls give him a 35% share of the electorate, suggesting that if there were a general election tomorrow, which there won’t be, the Reform party would win a landslide victory with over 400 seats, the Labour party would have fewer than 100 seats, and the Tories would be virtually wiped out. Even sane commentators like Fraser Nelson seem to be talking of Farage as the possible next prime minister.

How can this be ? It is of course partly because support for the two old parties has slumped. The Tories have been on a downward spiral ever since Boris’s landslide victory back in December 2019. [It wasn’t my fault. I was in Ankara at the time. And my postal vote never arrived.] Boris’s time ended in disgrace, and things got even worse under the unspeakable Liz Truss. Whose brief tenure did lasting harm both to the Tory party’s standing in the country and to the economy. The Labour party since their electoral victory just fourteen months ago have promised more than they have delivered. They have failed to revive a stagnant economy. [Why does a Labour prime minister repeatedly state that his top priority is to achieve economic growth ?] Their decision to make public support for Palestine Action a terrorist offence was a grievous mistake, which may yet be overturned in the courts. And in recent days the resignation of Angela Rayner and the sacking of Peter Mandelson [see more below] have substantially damaged the party’s image. But even so …

Farage appeared on stage in Birmingham to drum rolls and clouds of dry ice. He purports to be a ‘man of the people’, promising like his friend Trump to drain the swamp of corruption and elitism. But during his years in the European Parliament in Brussels he was best known for silly stunts in the chamber, and for massaging the expenses he claimed from an institution he claimed to despise. Now back in the UK he has set up a private company in order to reduce tax liability on his substantial income from media work. Tax management ? Or tax evasion ? When his constituents claimed he was an absentee MP, he promised to buy a house in the constituency. Which he did. What he initially  failed to mention was that, since he himself has a reputed £3 million property empire, the house would be bought in the name of his partner in order to minimise stamp duty. Not very different from the behaviour of Angela Rayner whom he excoriated.

The Reform Party

Even if you think that Farage is a competent enough politician, which I don’t, the Reform Party remains essentially a one-man band. Much was made at Birmingham of a ‘major new defector from the Tories’. This turned out to be Mad Nad, Noreen Dorries. Better known for her previous iteration as a drooling cheer-leader for Boris. She lectured the conference on the importance of loyalty. 

The other high level former Tory woman present was Andrea Jenkyns. She came onto stage in a sequinned trouser suit shouting the word of a song she wrote as a teenager, I’m an insomniac. I wondered whether she was dyslexic and the song was really I’m some maniac. It was toe-crushingly awful. 

Glowering in the wings was Ann Widdecombe. A guest on Have I got News for You last week, recalling her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing, wondered, “Why was her partner mopping the floor with her ?” The ever pompous Jacob Rees-Mogg told the conference that he wouldn’t be joining Reform. But that he was happy to act as a consultant. Advising on what ? Gender fluidity ? Youth culture ? Tax evasion ?

Peter Mandelson

I don’t dislike Keir Starmer. And I wish him well. But he doesn’t seem to have the right political instincts. And he seems pliable in the hands of his advisors.

The questions surrounding Peter Mandelson’s appointment as Ambassador to the United States rumble on. Who knew what ? And when ? Lawyers will no doubt argue over the small print. But anyone who knew anything about Mandelson’s previous track record would know that he was an accident waiting to happen. 

Mandelson rose without trace [as Willie Rushton used say of David Frost].  He was born into a middle class Jewish family in Hampstead Garden Suburb in 1953, read PPE at Oxford, was a youthful Labour councillor in Lambeth Borough Council, and then worked for a few years as a television producer. In 1985 Neil Kinnock appointed him as Labour’s Director of Communications. In that role he commissioned a slick party political broadcast Kinnock – The Movie for the 1987 general election. Which Labour lost. He became MP for Hartlepool in 1992, and after John Smith’s sudden death he stage-managed Blair’s campaign for the leadership against Gordon Brown. In order to conceal his role he was given the pseudonym of Bobby.

In 1998 Mandelson was appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. But he was forced to resign because of a scandal involving an undisclosed loan from Geoffrey Robinson, a Cabinet colleague whose affairs his department was investigating. After a year in the wilderness Mandelson was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. But early in 2001 he was forced to resign a second time following allegations that he had improperly canvassed support for a British passport application from a wealthy Indian businessman.

In 2004 Mandelson stood down as an MP, and became Britain’s European Commissioner taking the trade portfolio. During his years as a Commissioner there were a serious of complaints about inappropriate contacts; with Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft; with Diego Della Valle, a shady Italian tycoon; with Nat Rothschild; and with the Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, on whose yacht he holidayed off Corfu. 

Mandelson may be a gifted public relations man with an impressive range of contacts. But he is a slippery customer, with a well documented taste for the company of very rich people of doubtful morals. And economical with the truth Hence his friendships with Trump and with Jeffrey Epstein. Fawning on Trump clearly came easily to him. But as Ambassador he was always a high risk appointment.

Envoi

I am working slowly through a shelf of books on the Spanish Civil War. Of which more anon. After near drought conditions for months I am now waiting for a dry day or two to cut the grass. And the triffid-like chincherinchee on the upper patio is now taller than Susie.

September 2025